


Perks of Being A Strilonde

by PSXNOVA



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Dissociation, Gen, June Egbert - Freeform, Lucid Dreaming, Mental Health Issues, Non-Binary Terezi Pyrope, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Trans Female John Egbert, Trans Female Rose Lalonde, Trans Female Roxy Lalonde, Trans John Egbert, Trans Male Dave Strider, Trans Male Dirk Strider, Waffles, every kid has a race fuck araciality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 10:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24469711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PSXNOVA/pseuds/PSXNOVA
Summary: Earth C is great, but something has been eating away at Rose. The Light that she's been relying on is turning into a mirror and the reflection is ugly. Interactions are.. disingenuous. Life kind of fucking sucks.A fic about Rose's post-canon depression, dissociation, general mental health, and how pretending everything is okay will ultimately take you down in the end.
Relationships: Calliope/Roxy Lalonde, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, John Egbert/Terezi Pyrope, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	1. Prologue But AO3 Sucks So It Has To Be Chapter 1

As I wake up, I'm instantly aware that I'm dreaming. Not due to my abilities though. It would simply be ridiculous for me to wake up on a lavender beach with an ultraviolet sunset after clocking out in my apartment. However, something feels.. different. The sand feels like fresh static between my toes; the rays of the sun render me transparent. Waves of a pitch-black sea crash against the shore, but I hear no noise. I raise my eyes to the dark sky and see a younger me, in a much too familiar blackdeath trance. Her skin is ashen and she's dressed in stylish black robes. The girl is unconscious and falling towards the sea at an alarming rate. I attempt to shout out to her due to pure concern, but she doesn't come to. As soon as she hits the water, a burning twinge hits me and my entire body goes ice cold. In an instant I'm underwater, the few rays of light above quickly fading. The water is lonely, unintelligible, and vantablack. I have no idea how long it is that I'm drifting until a shape begins to form in front of me. It's a troll's head.

ROSE: ...Swifer?  
SWIFER: Meow.  


The voice is booming and sends me tumbling through the darkness. I close my eyes and the Light makes itself apparent to me instantly. It's angry, for seemingly no reason. It's confused, but everything in front of it is so simple. It's bothered, but it doesn't know by what. I try to use it to guide myself out of the murky waters, but it's just blinding me and holding me back. It's misunderstood and abused and led astray and... it's me.

**_Meoowww!!!_**

Rose wakes up once more, this time to an empty bed, save for the cat standing on her chest. Kanaya is nowhere to be seen and the house is silent, but a note on their ornate makeup mirror states that she's gone shopping for groceries. The cat mews, incessantly demanding canonical relevance. He's quite heavy but doesn't reach the weight class that would allow him to harm his loving gothic owner. He licks her tired face and she rises up to meet him at an eye level. They sit for a moment, staring intensely at each other until Rose breaks the insufferable silence that only she can adequately fill.

ROSE: What, are you hungry?  
MAVEN: ...  
ROSE: Do I.. need to let you outside?  
MAVEN: ......  
ROSE: Come on, work with me here.  
ROSE: ..Please?  


Maven hops off Rose's chest and saunters out into the hall. After lying in bed for a few more moments to get that feeling of refreshment that just seems to occur after saturating under a comforter for a bit, Rose hops out of bed and heads to get breakfast. Once she reaches the nice and neat kitchenette she pours some dry cat food into Maven's bowl, who taps the ground with anticipation and glares at her with stern feline approval. The final piece of kibble hits the bowl and Maven is off to the races, voraciously exhausting through his Meow Mix.

ROSE: Wow, you were _starving_ , weren't you?  
MAVEN: _g,fdg,,.f,,.mwwrah,.,fmnfm,fm,smn,,,, mrrrrrrrrrrrr_  


Rose elegantly _slides_ across the kitchen's tile floor in her fuzzy purple footies to her pantry. On the way there, she utilizes a masterful half-twirl to really solidify her status as the "International S-Tier Sock Skating" two-time champion. She lands at the cabinet and finds a box of waffle mix. After setting it down on the table, she **_SLIDES_** over to the fridge, with a bit more intention this time. Swinging the door open, there's only one thing she's looking for in this otherwise barren fridge and she knows exactly what it is. That gorgeous, crystal clear, immaculate water pitcher. She grabs it with both hands as to not offset the balance and cause a spill. One on the back handle and one on the front side. It takes a bit of an initial lift, but Rose has always been on the stockier side, so it ultimately requires no effort to move the pitcher out of the fridge and onto the table all in one fell swoop. She bends down and grabs a mixing bowl from the cabinet at her feet, ready to get to work. The cat has finished his breakfast, leaving his eldritch demiurge of a mother to practice the craft that she has recently all but mastered.

ROSE: Time to make some goddamn waffles.  
ROSE: HALexa, play my cooking playlist.  
HALexa: Now playing "Rose's Cooking Playlist" from Spotify.   
HALexa: First song, ["122 Days"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7kKonurbj4) by $uicideboy$.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, thanks for making it to end of this prologue! this is my first fic and i have some loose plans for it, but i still have to get them out of my head, hehe. through this fic i hope to document some of my own experiences through the guise of a fictional character, while also just giving people the rose content they don't know they need yet.  
>    
>  oh, by the way, Maven is a real cat that "belongs" to my friend [adam](https://twitter.com/gothshigeo), while "HALexa" is an idea that my friend [bree](https://twitter.com/bree_zv) came up with when i explicitly asked "what's the hs equivalent of alexa". just thought you might want to know that.  
>    
>  until next update, y'all! BLM, ACAB. donate to the minnesota freedom fund, please. 


	2. The Ghost of Times Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose talks to the wife, reflects on the past, and reaches out to a friend.

Jesus, I love this song so much.

_And if I may just take your breath away_

_I don't mind if there's not much to say_

_Sometimes the silence guides a mind_

_To move to a place so far aw-_ Oh, the last waffle is ready.

ROSE: HALexa, stop.  


Rose pops open the perfectly generic waffle maker that Roxy gifted to her last holiday and flips out a house-shaped waffle. The color of the waffle is just a little darker than golden brown and that's just how Rose prefers them. The waffle remains fluffy but can handle a bukkake of butter and syrup without getting soggy. After cleaning up the kitchen a bit and dressing her waffles, she heads into the apartment's cozy study, plops down at her desk, and opens her laptop. It's 11:42 in the morning and she's about to get cracking on her novel when her phone rings.

ROSE: Good morning, dear.  
KANAYA: Hello You Are Finally Awake  
KANAYA: I Need Help With These So Called  
KANAYA: Cheeto Selections  
KANAYA: There Is A Large Variety To Choose From But I Do Not Understand  
KANAYA: They All Look The Same But Different Simultaneously  
ROSE: Oh, don't stress over it too much.  
ROSE: Forget about the Cheetos in all honesty, they aren't _that_ great.  
ROSE: Search for a purple bag on the same aisle.  
ROSE: It probably isn't too far off and should be instantly noticeable.  
ROSE: It'll be called "Takis", the chip itself will look like a rolled-up blunt.  
KANAYA: Oh Yes Of Course  
KANAYA: The Appearance Of Marijuana Is More Of An Apt Description For This Corn Chip That It Should Be  
KANAYA: Probably  
KANAYA: Anyways I Will Be Coming Home Soon Do You Need Anything  
ROSE: Well, I can't recall anything actually.  
KANAYA: Are You Absolutely Sure  
ROSE: Yes, my darling Kanaya, I promise.  
KANAYA: Alright I Am Walking Over To Checkout Now  
KANAYA: See You Soon  


_*click*_

Rose digs into her waffles and opens up Crockle Docs. She scrolls through her history until she finds a document titled "Doomlock Draft", which was last opened years ago.

Oh, holy shit. I forgot I had even started working on this.

After opening the draft, memories start flooding back to Rose's mind. Two years ago, Rose wanted to [make a comic and host it on the Internet](https://mspfa.com/?s=34718&p=1). She'd write about a group of kids, but their journey would be different from the one she embarked on with Jade, Dave, and June. These kids wrote and "spoke" in varying fonts reflective of their personality, inspired by the typing quirks of trolls and vocal inflections of the kids. The story itself was paradoxical, as the kids had been playing a rigged game from the start with complete ignorance. Once they reached the end of their journey and were ready to fight the gamemaster that served as their god, they'd lose and the world would be blanketed in darkness, save for one hero. This hero used the last of their power to reiterate the world into a state tilted in favor of the protagonists, which served as the story's introduction. Of course, this took a lot of inspiration from Rose's time in Sburb, but no one would know that, right? Well, Calliope would know. Rose was going to contract her for all the comic's art.

God, this sucks ass, actually. I can probably salvage a few concepts, but the plot is just a low-quality carbon copy of what we experienced. The way it's structured right now makes no sense and isn't worth the lengths I'd have to go to in order to make this legitimately legible. The harder I read into this, the more ashamed I become of it. Shit, did I ever tell Calliope that I was going to stop working on this? Did _I_ even know that I didn't want to write this anymore? Or did it all just fall apart, like some teenager's fanfiction?

Rose copies a few things from the document. Fluffy character interactions that don't rely on the half-baked plot too much, descriptive prose that helped visualize environments, loose universal concepts that could easily be applied to another work. All of these are stuffed into a "concepts.txt" saved on Rose's desktop before the draft meets its final fate.

Hm.. that's really frustrating. I've never thrown away a work of mine before, they're just... good? I'm happy with them, other people usually love them. What changed that time? Are all of my works since then just garbage that I haven't taken out yet?? Is there trash that I've written before and I'm only finding this specifically? What if nothing I write is good? People could just be pretending to like it for my sake. Ugh, this is annoying. Not good for my head, especially this early in the morning. Whatever, this doesn't matter right now. I can spiral later. I should get out of the house probably, breathe some fresh air, see some people.

Rose reaches for her phone and taps out a simple text message to one of her best friends. You know who it is, I really don't even have to say anything.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 12:56 --  
  
TT: Hey, June?  
TT: Do you have a moment?  
TT: It's kind of important, I guess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> doomlock is painfully real, it was the result of a bad trip i had once. i guess this means that the PSX cinematic universe is coming together? nah not actually, i don't have the capacity for that  
>    
>  i struggled a bit with this chapter initially, but after taking a step back it was pretty easy for me to rewrite it to not be a bunch of short garbage. (the convo with kanaya was going to happen anyways though, thanks to two unnamed kanaya kinnies for making sure i nailed her character.)  
>    
>  ACAB, BLM, donate to the minnesota freedom fund. support black businesses.  
> 


	3. UPDATE: FUCK IT'S BEEN 2 MONTHS

uhhhhh hey everyone, it's been a bit. i haven't updated this fic in more than 2 months, but i haven't forgotten about it. most of the true 3rd chapter is actually sitting on my hard drive, i just need to finish it and publish it.  
  
thing is though, i don't have any loyalties to HS anymore. i've been hyperfixating on undertale/deltarune recently, homestuck kinda sucks shit when you don't have an obsession with it. plus, [ it's very possible that hussie is an abuser](https://archive.is/FT5BG), so i don't feel that comfortable making a work with his characters, y'know?  
  
i've been working on my own original projects, school also started for me this week, so that's all been bogging me down. i'll try to finish this fic because i really have some great ideas for it still, but i can't promise that it'll be timely at all. sorry for letting y'all down or w/e. 


End file.
